I have this idea to run a few leagues in which you draft/auction a standard 23 man roto team, and a 7 team bench. These leagues would have NO MOVES (no drop/add and no trades) and you would set your lineup at year end (you can insert guys off of your bench to make the best 23 man roster).

This idea was mainly to get some friends who aren't into fantasy baseball or who don't want to deal with the grind of working on their teams daily.

Does anyone currently run a league like this and can you tell me if there are any things that you have found out from running so?

Im in an AL only with no add/drops (we do 2 drafts 1 at the start of the year and one about 2 months in like a supplemental) BUT we have trades

Where you are saying you dont have guys that into it and they dont want to keep up with it might be fine ..normally though casual pools like this are best reserved for HR debys or strikeout pools..everyone drafts a bunch of hitters or pitchers (or both and you track HRs and K's) and guy with the most HRs or K's at midseason or seasons end wins or the like

"I'm the man with the ball. I'm the man who can throw it faster than F***. So that's why I'm better than anyone in the world." - Kenny Powers

I personally think it's pretty silly. It's not even really a "league"... it's just a drafting competition. It's like a bracket pool... everyone makes their picks and at the end you see who did the best. If you were to do it I would market it that way. I don't think people will really be interested unless there's some significant money on the line... otherwise, come August I don't think anyone will really care about some team they drafted back in March.

I don't disagree with your categorization of this thing. I am marketing it at 2 different groups at the same time Group 1 - guys who do a bunch of leagues and maybe don't have time for a few more, but want a little bit more drafting action Group 2 - guys who don't usually play fantasy baseball, but who I want to try to get interested..............the other variable is that I want to do one of these as an auction and get my usual group involved in doing an auction or two.........I have motives. the money is small, but very top heavy.

This idea is not silly at all. In fact it makes perfect sense to me. We've limited our free agent transactions to 3 every year for the last ten years. It puts more emphasis on the draft, which there should be IMO, and greatly encourages trading and interaction amongst owners. Which is what you ideally want in a league, right? But in order to do this you have to draft a considerable amount of bench players. We draft a 14 player bench (to go along with 23 starters). We do a live draft. It takes around 7 hours. Best 7 hours of the year.

Unlimited (or ridiculously high) transactions reward the guys who are on their computers all day and are quickest to hit the "add player" button. Not much skill in constantly churning over your roster with the hottest players. And in our league, it's an unfair advantage. We've got guys who work in trades where they have no access to computers during the day.

But, Chadgo, he said no trading either. What it becomes is draft a team and see you in 6-8 months for a payout. My league does 6 add/drops a week, and it's daily because we like the activity. Making a league with no roster movement beyond bench guys will probably end up with people barely paying attention unless a big player gets injured--especially in a weekly league. I don't personally like the idea.

Sometimes we take the mock drafts here at the Cafe and set them up in a league like this. It's a way to determine a draft "winner" but as is mentioned above there's nothing else to it. I would suggest trying weekly h2h if you want to introduce some friends to fantasy baseball.

Maine has a good swing for a pitcher but on anything that moves, he has no chance. And if it's a fastball, it has to be up in the zone. Basically, the pitcher has to hit his bat. - Mike Pelfrey

Chadgo5 wrote:Unlimited (or ridiculously high) transactions reward the guys who are on their computers all day and are quickest to hit the "add player" button. Not much skill in constantly churning over your roster with the hottest players. And in our league, it's an unfair advantage. We've got guys who work in trades where they have no access to computers during the day.

We run all Free Agents through a nightly waiver system which fixes this problem.